"Every life has a death, and every light a shadow.
Be content to dance in the light, and let the shadow fall where it may."
- Lord David
12 July 2008
Dancing - Where the Hell is Matt - He gets the NoLA Rising award / Matt Harding, Melissa Nixon and Palbasha Siddique have re-inspired me today
Screw the mundane usualness of our world and our day to day toil. We have our work schedule, we have all the boring things we have to do to make a paper currency so that we can fit in time to do the things we enjoy. But, those countless hours lost in our commutes, in our production quotas, have nothing on the true measure of life...and that is happiness. I can tell you that if it wasn't for this video, and for people like this, I would still be in bed dreading my day. So let's be grateful for the people like Matt Harding, Melissa Nixon and the Palbasha Siddique in the world.
Stream of Life
by Rabindranath Tagore
The same stream of life
that runs through my veins
night and day
runs through the world
and dances in rhythmic measures.
It is the same life
that shoots in joy
through the dust of the earth
in numberless blades of grass
and breaks into tumultuous waves
of leaves and flowers.
It is the same life
that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth
and of death, in ebb and in flow.
I feel my limbs are made glorious
by the touch of this world of life.
And my pride is from the life-throb
of ages dancing in my blood this moment.
Thanks for reading,
ReX
Stream of Life
by Rabindranath Tagore
The same stream of life
that runs through my veins
night and day
runs through the world
and dances in rhythmic measures.
It is the same life
that shoots in joy
through the dust of the earth
in numberless blades of grass
and breaks into tumultuous waves
of leaves and flowers.
It is the same life
that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth
and of death, in ebb and in flow.
I feel my limbs are made glorious
by the touch of this world of life.
And my pride is from the life-throb
of ages dancing in my blood this moment.
Thanks for reading,
ReX
XO STUDIOS MAKES THE GAMBIT - Show Saturday, July 12th
XO STUDIOS GETS REVIEW IN THE GAMBIT! Read it below or go to THE GAMBIT ONLINE and find it there...
ART REVIEW 7/8/08 From The Gambit
X Factor
By D. Eric Bookhardt
Located in what owner Dave Bachli calls 'the longest shotgun house" in the area, X/o Studios may seem an unlikely site for an art gallery. Far from the stark 'white cube" favored by contemporary art curators and gallery directors, X/o is located in a very long, narrow and decrepit 1850s shotgun house by the tracks at the intersection of Dauphine and Press streets, a place as rich in atmosphere as it is short on polish. If the style and setting is far from Chelsea, or even Julia Street, the work also tends toward the funky and atmospheric.
'This is what I think of as Bywater art," Bachli says. 'That's something I think is very much a reflection of this area." What he's referring to is a sense of street-level creativity that may not always be precisely polished, but which seems to be coming from a real, if sometimes unpredictable, place.
Yet even if all these artists' efforts look right in this peculiarly Press Street sort of space, their styles can vary widely. For instance, Amie Davis, whose photographs occupy the front room, makes for a stark contrast with the paintings of Eric Lee Buchanan in the next chamber. Expressing a kind of Gothic romanticism, Davis photographs tombs and funerary sculpture in black and white and then enlivens her prints by hand tinting patches of background and details so her tombs and statuary sort of pop out at you, bringing new life to the long dead.
It's all a far cry from Buchanan's buoyantly stylized figures, colorfully expressionistic images of musicians and characters clearly inspired by the denizens of Bywater and French Quarter streets. While they might seem to run the risk of being seen as cliched or formulaic, the verve is real, as is the deft touch with a brush, lending his work an authenticity behind the buoyancy.
Allison Termine returns us to a gothic mode with delicate, dreamlike canvases of spectral figures, some floating across the sky in gothic/romantic cloudscapes recalling Salvador Dali, others wielding tall staffs with colorful streamers as if headed to the Jazz Fest. More introspective than this sounds, Termine's delicate figures suggest that discarnate beings have feelings, too.
That sensitivity extends to the odd little forms and figures in Taylor Lee Shepherd's paintings as well as the little squares on a panel of pressed ceiling tin that he used as a canvas for dozens of fleshy little images of what? I'm not really sure and I didn't ask, probably because I was more intrigued by his odd and finely crafted Drawing Machine, a graceful wooden frame holding the ends of a painted scroll like an old-time piano roll operated by a pair of white ceramic handles. Turn them and a narrative unfolds in a series of line drawings like a Paleolithic filmstrip. His canvases extend this delicate vein of contemplative figuration.
Probably the biggest surprise is the sharply realized work of Paulie Lingerfelt, a 21-year-old perhaps best known as one of those picturesque dudes in vintage rags most often seen in the vicinity " if not behind the counter " of various Marigny-area oases. His Americana-based paintings are illustrational but bristle with an expressionistic intensity reminiscent of a Tom Waits take on Dylan's old John Wesley Harding album.
Other artists include recent Mississippi transplant Martin Welch, whose breezy portrait of his uncle looking rather elegant in an evening dress is a social statement of sorts; Michael Dingler, whose post-storm NOLA Rising project produced numerous hand-painted messages of joy and hope along with countless street signs to replace those Katrina blew away; and well-known Jazz Fest artist Joy Gauss, whose ceramic figures evoke the Bone Gangs that still haunt the back streets on Mardi Gras and other sacred holidays. All of these artists have a distinct worldview, and in this uniquely ramshackle and ephemeral setting, all are quite clearly at home.
---
Printed in The weekly edition of The Gambit
ART REVIEW 7/8/08 From The Gambit
X Factor
By D. Eric Bookhardt
Located in what owner Dave Bachli calls 'the longest shotgun house" in the area, X/o Studios may seem an unlikely site for an art gallery. Far from the stark 'white cube" favored by contemporary art curators and gallery directors, X/o is located in a very long, narrow and decrepit 1850s shotgun house by the tracks at the intersection of Dauphine and Press streets, a place as rich in atmosphere as it is short on polish. If the style and setting is far from Chelsea, or even Julia Street, the work also tends toward the funky and atmospheric.
'This is what I think of as Bywater art," Bachli says. 'That's something I think is very much a reflection of this area." What he's referring to is a sense of street-level creativity that may not always be precisely polished, but which seems to be coming from a real, if sometimes unpredictable, place.
Yet even if all these artists' efforts look right in this peculiarly Press Street sort of space, their styles can vary widely. For instance, Amie Davis, whose photographs occupy the front room, makes for a stark contrast with the paintings of Eric Lee Buchanan in the next chamber. Expressing a kind of Gothic romanticism, Davis photographs tombs and funerary sculpture in black and white and then enlivens her prints by hand tinting patches of background and details so her tombs and statuary sort of pop out at you, bringing new life to the long dead.
It's all a far cry from Buchanan's buoyantly stylized figures, colorfully expressionistic images of musicians and characters clearly inspired by the denizens of Bywater and French Quarter streets. While they might seem to run the risk of being seen as cliched or formulaic, the verve is real, as is the deft touch with a brush, lending his work an authenticity behind the buoyancy.
Allison Termine returns us to a gothic mode with delicate, dreamlike canvases of spectral figures, some floating across the sky in gothic/romantic cloudscapes recalling Salvador Dali, others wielding tall staffs with colorful streamers as if headed to the Jazz Fest. More introspective than this sounds, Termine's delicate figures suggest that discarnate beings have feelings, too.
That sensitivity extends to the odd little forms and figures in Taylor Lee Shepherd's paintings as well as the little squares on a panel of pressed ceiling tin that he used as a canvas for dozens of fleshy little images of what? I'm not really sure and I didn't ask, probably because I was more intrigued by his odd and finely crafted Drawing Machine, a graceful wooden frame holding the ends of a painted scroll like an old-time piano roll operated by a pair of white ceramic handles. Turn them and a narrative unfolds in a series of line drawings like a Paleolithic filmstrip. His canvases extend this delicate vein of contemplative figuration.
Probably the biggest surprise is the sharply realized work of Paulie Lingerfelt, a 21-year-old perhaps best known as one of those picturesque dudes in vintage rags most often seen in the vicinity " if not behind the counter " of various Marigny-area oases. His Americana-based paintings are illustrational but bristle with an expressionistic intensity reminiscent of a Tom Waits take on Dylan's old John Wesley Harding album.
Other artists include recent Mississippi transplant Martin Welch, whose breezy portrait of his uncle looking rather elegant in an evening dress is a social statement of sorts; Michael Dingler, whose post-storm NOLA Rising project produced numerous hand-painted messages of joy and hope along with countless street signs to replace those Katrina blew away; and well-known Jazz Fest artist Joy Gauss, whose ceramic figures evoke the Bone Gangs that still haunt the back streets on Mardi Gras and other sacred holidays. All of these artists have a distinct worldview, and in this uniquely ramshackle and ephemeral setting, all are quite clearly at home.
---
Printed in The weekly edition of The Gambit
Dancing - Where the Hell is Matt - He gets the NoLA Rising award / Matt Harding, Melissa Nixon and Palbasha Siddique have re-inspired me today
Screw the mundane usualness of our world and our day to day toil. We have our work schedule, we have all the boring things we have to do to make a paper currency so that we can fit in time to do the things we enjoy. But, those countless hours lost in our commutes, in our production quotas, have nothing on the true measure of life...and that is happiness. I can tell you that if it wasn't for this video, and for people like this, I would still be in bed dreading my day. So let's be grateful for the people like Matt Harding, Melissa Nixon and the Palbasha Siddique in the world.
Stream of Life
by Rabindranath Tagore
The same stream of life
that runs through my veins
night and day
runs through the world
and dances in rhythmic measures.
It is the same life
that shoots in joy
through the dust of the earth
in numberless blades of grass
and breaks into tumultuous waves
of leaves and flowers.
It is the same life
that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth
and of death, in ebb and in flow.
I feel my limbs are made glorious
by the touch of this world of life.
And my pride is from the life-throb
of ages dancing in my blood this moment.
Thanks for reading,
ReX
Stream of Life
by Rabindranath Tagore
The same stream of life
that runs through my veins
night and day
runs through the world
and dances in rhythmic measures.
It is the same life
that shoots in joy
through the dust of the earth
in numberless blades of grass
and breaks into tumultuous waves
of leaves and flowers.
It is the same life
that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth
and of death, in ebb and in flow.
I feel my limbs are made glorious
by the touch of this world of life.
And my pride is from the life-throb
of ages dancing in my blood this moment.
Thanks for reading,
ReX
11 July 2008
NoLA Rising - A Year at the Wheel Video
As seen on BLIP: As Graffiti goes, in New Orleans it seems to blend in with all of the sounds, art, music posters and good food smells - unless you run into a street that has been hit by the grey ghost(Fred Radtke). Fred paints grey boxes over graffiti, commissioned murals, paintings and music posters... Fred also beats on artists, pulls guns on upcoming politicians and is presently at war with NOLA RISING. http://nolarising.blogspot.com/ Distributed by Tubemogul.
See what Shane and Amy have been up to this past year at http://www.ayearatthewheel.com/
10 July 2008
Crucial Millage Vote - Saturday July 19th
As many of y'all may know, I have a number of interests and projects at any one given time. I'm kept abreast of them all by many people who know what to filter to me and this has been one of the most important to come to me lately. Please take the time to read the following email I have received and consider re-posting it or using it as information for an issue that is vital to keeping a healthy public school system. Sure, I'm aware of the school board's past, but that should by no means be an excuse to cut funding to our students in an already suffering system. Thanks for reading...ReX
Michael:
I appreciate your support spreading the word on this critical upcoming election on Saturday, July 19.
On Saturday July 19, voters will have the opportunity to vote to renew the current millage that pays for textbooks, classroom materials, teacher salaries and facilities maintenance for the children enrolled in public schools in Orleans parish (Charter, NOPS, Algiers and RSD). The renewal of the millage will not raise taxes, but will assure critical needs for the children in our public schools. The four tax renewals up for vote are as follows:
Purpose A Instructional Materials
(Textbooks, software, computers and vocational education materials are examples of eligible instructional materials.)
$114 per child
Purpose B Dropout Prevention
(Early childhood development funding for Pre-K, target programs for failing students, dropout prevention)
$114 per child
Purpose C Purpose Salaries/Benefits
(Salaries, benefits)
$535 per child
Purpose D Facility Improvements
(facility improvements such as air conditioning, asbestos removal and renovations.)
$171 per child
Total: $29,966,423
$934 per child
This aforementioned is a crucial existing local revenue stream. Withdrawing an established source of recurring revenue would enormously compound the difficulties our schools face. It would complicate the day-to-day operation of schools and threaten to undermine the school reform movement a whole.
I personally urge you to vote YES on A, B, C, D on Saturday July, 19th.
For an in depth look at each done by the independent non-profit and non-partisan organization BGR see:
http://www.bgr.org/BGR%20Reports/On%20the%20Ballot%2008%20-%20Schools/On_the_Ballot-Schools.pdf
Warmest Regards,
AJ
Michael:
I appreciate your support spreading the word on this critical upcoming election on Saturday, July 19.
On Saturday July 19, voters will have the opportunity to vote to renew the current millage that pays for textbooks, classroom materials, teacher salaries and facilities maintenance for the children enrolled in public schools in Orleans parish (Charter, NOPS, Algiers and RSD). The renewal of the millage will not raise taxes, but will assure critical needs for the children in our public schools. The four tax renewals up for vote are as follows:
Purpose A Instructional Materials
(Textbooks, software, computers and vocational education materials are examples of eligible instructional materials.)
$114 per child
Purpose B Dropout Prevention
(Early childhood development funding for Pre-K, target programs for failing students, dropout prevention)
$114 per child
Purpose C Purpose Salaries/Benefits
(Salaries, benefits)
$535 per child
Purpose D Facility Improvements
(facility improvements such as air conditioning, asbestos removal and renovations.)
$171 per child
Total: $29,966,423
$934 per child
This aforementioned is a crucial existing local revenue stream. Withdrawing an established source of recurring revenue would enormously compound the difficulties our schools face. It would complicate the day-to-day operation of schools and threaten to undermine the school reform movement a whole.
I personally urge you to vote YES on A, B, C, D on Saturday July, 19th.
For an in depth look at each done by the independent non-profit and non-partisan organization BGR see:
http://www.bgr.org/BGR%20Reports/On%20the%20Ballot%2008%20-%20Schools/On_the_Ballot-Schools.pdf
Warmest Regards,
AJ
01 July 2008
Champions of New Orleans and NoLA Rising Team Up for an Afternoon
This past Saturday, NoLA Rising and the pioneering Tulane student group Students of NoLA Rising, had a small paint party with a youth group made up of young adolescents with autism and aspergers syndrome. The event was held at the East Jefferson Main Library on W. Napoleon Avenue with Champions of Greater New Orleans headed by Dee Ducote.
Avi BenBasat, President of the Students of NoLA Rising, happened to meet the coordinator of the group by chance, and thought that it would be really interesting to observe what benefits might come about from concentrated-individual-anything-goes type art projects that are typically associated with NoLA Rising.
For those not too familiar with autism, the condition can often provoke a large amount of stress and uneasiness, as many with the condition have a very difficult time relating to other people, and picking up on social cues and communication, or "empathizing," that most people take for granted. This impairment can often make the world a hostile and confusing place for those diagnosed. The fantastic thing about art, is not only is it incredibly expressive, but it can also be an amazing therapeutic tool. So ideally, one would hope that art projects could not only serve as a potential window for emotions and perspectives previously unknown to the caregivers and loved-ones of someone with autism, but could also be a great calming mechanism for coping with the stresses from a world misunderstood.
The process of creating the artwork showed great promise for all of our young painters and the use of it as therapy was proven. For more information on the Champions of Greater New Orleans, you can email Champions_of_GNO @ juno.com...you can email for more information on meetings and activities.
A very big thank you to Avi for organizing this and to Dee for letting us be a part.
Avi BenBasat, President of the Students of NoLA Rising, happened to meet the coordinator of the group by chance, and thought that it would be really interesting to observe what benefits might come about from concentrated-individual-anything-goes type art projects that are typically associated with NoLA Rising.
For those not too familiar with autism, the condition can often provoke a large amount of stress and uneasiness, as many with the condition have a very difficult time relating to other people, and picking up on social cues and communication, or "empathizing," that most people take for granted. This impairment can often make the world a hostile and confusing place for those diagnosed. The fantastic thing about art, is not only is it incredibly expressive, but it can also be an amazing therapeutic tool. So ideally, one would hope that art projects could not only serve as a potential window for emotions and perspectives previously unknown to the caregivers and loved-ones of someone with autism, but could also be a great calming mechanism for coping with the stresses from a world misunderstood.
The process of creating the artwork showed great promise for all of our young painters and the use of it as therapy was proven. For more information on the Champions of Greater New Orleans, you can email Champions_of_GNO @ juno.com...you can email for more information on meetings and activities.
A very big thank you to Avi for organizing this and to Dee for letting us be a part.
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